IDC Unveils Worldwide CIO Agenda 2020 Predictions

Guiding CIOs through an unprecedented period of hyperscale, hyperspeed, and hyperconnectedness

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#CIOAgenda–Time for action is growing short for CIOs in the digital era. Many continue to struggle with siloed digital transformation initiatives, leaving them adrift and buffeted by competition and market forces. To support CIOs with guidance on complex, fast-moving environments and prescriptive, actionable recommendations, IDC today published IDC FutureScape: Worldwide CIO Agenda 2020 Predictions (IDC #US45578619). The predictions provide a strategic context that will enable CIOs to lead their organizations through a period of hyperscale, hyperspeed, and hyperconnectedness over the next five years. They also lay out IDC’s vision for the ten most important shifts that will happen in IT organizations over the next 60 months and will help senior IT executives form their strategic IT plans.

In a FutureScape web conference to be held today at 12:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern time, IDC analysts Joe Pucciarelli and Serge Findling will offer guidance – about technologies, markets, and ecosystems – to help CIOs better understand future trends and their impacts on the enterprise. Each year, IDC presents these predictions, derived from key external drivers that will impact the enterprise and the IT organization and offering recommendations for the years ahead. To register for an on-demand replay of this or any other IDC FutureScape Web conference, please go to: https://www.idc.com/idcfuturescape2020.

“While there has been no single ‘year of reckoning’ for CIOs in the digital era, time for action is growing short, as competitors are accelerating their digital efforts. The ten predictions in this study define the concrete actions that CIOs can and must take to create digital-native ‘future enterprises,'” said Serge Findling, vice president of Research for IDC’s IT Executive Programs (IEP). “In this hyperspeed, hyperscale, and hyperconnected phase of digital transformation, CIOs must rapidly transform their organizations to become the Future IT.”

The predictions from the IDC FutureScape for Worldwide CIO Agenda are:

Prediction 1: By 2024 the IT strategy for 80% of digitally advanced organizations will evolve to a broad, flexible, self-service mashup of digital tools to replace the “walled-garden” IT-as-an-Enabler model.

Prediction 2: By 2023, 65% of CIOs will be entrepreneurial leaders who evolve their organizations into centers of excellence that engineer enterprise-wide collaboration and innovation.

Prediction 3: Driven both by escalating cyber threats and needed new functionality, 65% of enterprises will aggressively modernize legacy systems with extensive new technology platform investments through 2023.

Prediction 4: By 2023, as a pillar of their IT multicloud approach, 70% of IT organizations will implement a strategic container/abstraction/API playbook to enhance application portability and hosting flexibility.

Prediction 5: By 2022, 70% of IT organizations will have transitioned from builders and operators to designer and integrators of digital solutions that come to define every product, service, or process.

Prediction 6: Through 2023, 80% of IT organizations will accelerate software development to enable them to deploy at least weekly code updates/revisions and business value delivery.

Prediction 8: Through 2022, deployment of artificial intelligence to augment, streamline, and accelerate IT operations will be a principal IT transformation (ITX) initiative for 60% of enterprise IT organizations.

Prediction 9: Through 2024, 75% of CIOs will reshape all IT resources, including budgets, assets, and talent, to support real-time resource allocation and enterprise agility, dramatically reducing fixed costs.

This IDC FutureScape presents information about technologies, markets, and ecosystems that help CIOs better understand future trends and their impacts on the enterprise. They also present guidance on complex, fast-moving environments and offer prescriptive, actionable recommendations. Every year, IDC identifies the key external drivers that will influence businesses in the coming years. An IDC FutureScape establishes ten predictions derived from these drivers, analyses the impacts on the IT organization, and proposes recommendations for the next five years.

IDC FutureScape reports are used to shape IT strategy and planning for the enterprise by providing a basic framework for evaluating IT initiatives in terms of their value to business strategy now and in the foreseeable future. IDC’s FutureScapes are comprised of a set of decision imperatives designed to identify a range of pending issues that CIOs and senior technology professionals will confront within the typical three- to five-year business planning cycle.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC’s analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights: http://bit.ly/IDCBlog_Subscribe.